Cross-server (was: Re: Bindings, Locks, and MOVE)

Greg Stein wrote:

> [btw, is *anybody* going to be implementing cross-server MOVE/COPY? is
> it necessary to have that feature in the spec at all? of the umpteen DAV
> servers out there now, I don't know any that do this or plan to do this.

It's still early, though.

> It would be nice to cut the thing and not worry about it.]

I dunno.  I certainly appreciate not wanting to implement it; it's going to be a
marginal case, especially since you can't expect that the request's WWW-Authenticate:
will work for both servers.  But it has the potential to be a really *useful* marginal
case.  :-) As long as the protocol designers are willing to expend the thought to make
it work, and as long as the results don't overcomplicate the base case, I'd say leave
it in.

It occurs to me that one possible way to implement it would be in a proxy, which, in
response to a cross-server COPY, would do what sitecopy does.  Such a proxy could live
out on a fast backbone site, providing services that would take too long if the client
did them itself over a slow link; and it could store the user's credentials for
various servers, so that it could provide the right credentials to each server it
talks to.

--
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|John Stracke    |http://www.ecal.com|My opinions are my own.|
|Chief Scientist |===========================================|
|eCal Corp.      |Speak softly and carry an Illudium Q-32    |
|francis@ecal.com|Explosive Space Disintegrator.             |
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Received on Friday, 3 September 1999 09:04:19 UTC